CLIMATE CHANGE: A CURSE OR A BLESSING? YOUR CHOICE.
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Jorge Rebagliati
Jan 25, 2018, 10:53:32 PM1/25/18
to ClimateAc...@googlegroups.co, osc_eart...@googlegroups.com
Dear friends:
We have just challenged our local Sonoma County governments to choose between CLIMATE CHANGE AS A CURSE OR AS BLESSING.
We'll you join us in this challenge?
Hoping for the Blessing,
Jorge
"We are the ones we've been waiting for"
DECLARATION: "Climate Crisis Is Already A Major Disaster"
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From: Jorge Rebagliati <jorge...@sbcglobal.net>
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Sent: Thursday, January 25, 2018 5:07 PM
Subject: CLIMATE CHANGE: A CURSE OR A BLESSING? YOUR CHOICE.
Dear Sonoma County Supervisors, City of Santa Rosa City Council and Sonoma County Mayors:
While listening to the well-intended presenters at the Town Hall Meeting in Santa Rosa, on January 13th 2018 reporting on the Sonoma County recovery and rebuilding efforts, I noticed that there was no consideration to the crucial role of Climate Change in the planning and execution of those efforts, and in the future of the County.
This resistance to dealing with the current and future environmental conditions created by Climate Change, by responding with old solutions to the new problems, seriously jeopardizes the success of those efforts and the very existence of Sonoma County as a safe and prosperous place to live.
Climate Change is a catastrophic hazard that is impossible to tackle alone, particularly for communities like ours that have already been weakened by one or more Climate Change-related disasters. This reality is true to many places in the world like the island nations that are disappearing under the ocean, main cities of the world like Cape Town in South Africa and American locations like Houston, Texas , Norfolk, Virginia and Puerto Rico.
You have shown in the past that you are not indifferent to Climate Change with the approval of the Santa Rosa Climate Action Plan and the Climate Action 2020 Plan but those plans suggested a hope that we would not be affected by Climate Change in the near future and offered a "right thing to do kind of action" instead of an urgent response to a crisis that was already on us.
The arsenal of Climate Change is vast. The October Fire Storms and the likelihood of more of them in the near future are in everybody's minds, but you must not forget that there are other "swords of Damocles" hanging over our heads that are been mostly ignored but that can be even more destructive than the Fire Storms, such as megafloods (The very close call with the Oroville Dam spillways in February of 2017 could have been an event of that kind). To get on "war footing" with Climate Change is the only reasonable path to hope to win in this accelerating Climate Crisis. As we say in our petition to Governor Jerry Brown: "We say that we are fighting Climate Change without having ever declared war".
If you can make a quantum leap in your leadership, abandoning business as usual, you can turn the Curse of Climate Change into a Blessing for Sonoma County.
The key for success is that you take full responsibility for the Climate Change issue by agreeing to lead an immediate Climate Change-Ready transformation of the County and that you officially declare Climate Change A Major Disaster and apply for resources outside the County commensurate to the task of Climate Restoration and Climate Change Adaptation.
The Declarations are essential to the strategy because they are the concretization of the executive power you have as local governments to tackle great threats to our community and to ask for financial and other help to achieve the Climate Change-Ready transformation, for which we do not have enough resources of our own.
Also by issuing Climate Change Major Disaster Declarations we will help ourselves and the rest of humanity by categorizing Climate Change as the Major Disaster that it already is and encourage Governor Jerry Brown to issue a Declaration for the whole State. Keeping Climate Change in a categorization limbo has been a major strategy of the powers-that-be to discourage Climate Change Action.
Here are links to documents to guide you in the preparation and issuance of Climate Change Major Disaster Declarations to start this radical but indispensable mobilization:
Governor Jerry Brown's request for presidential disaster declaration, February 10, 2017 (See attached PDF)
Choosing the Climate Change Blessing instead of the Climate Change Curse will not be easy and comfortable, but you will give us the greatest opportunity a community can have to remake itself in harmony with the laws of Nature that support our lives and act from a position of strength instead of from a position of great weakness.
Embracing a purpose of this high order will also give Sonoma County great independence over its own destiny, a rare gift not easily obtained by communities and individuals.
As catastrophes like the hurricanes, floods and fire storms of 2017 severaly damage cities and towns, the demand for extraordinary assistance will grow very rapidly and that assistance will grow harder to get. With this in mind, you must understand the advantage of being the first territory to issue the Declarations and to commit to becoming Climate Change-Ready.
As a corollary to this proposal and plea, we leave you with the assurance that Climate Change is already a Major Disaster and the greatest standing risk globally as recognized in the World Economic Forum: The Global Risks Report 2018. In this report, out of the 5 MOST LIKELY and MOST IMPACTFUL global risks for 2018, 3 of them, "Extreme Weather Events", "Natural Disasters" and "Failure of Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation", are risks related directly and indirectly to Climate Change.
Please embrace the "Gray Rhino" of Climate Change by leading humanity out of the current course of destruction and extermination by the powerful forces of the Climate we changed.
Best regards,
Jorge Rebagliati
Climate Change Major Disaster Declaration Campaign
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